THE  PRESENT  TASK  of  the  MINISTRY 


BY 

PRESIDENT  WOODROW  WILSON,  LL.D 


Fjartford  Seminary  press 

HARTFORD,  CONN. 


THE  PRESENT  TASK  of  the  MINISTRY 


AN  ADDRESS 

AT  THE  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 

Seventy-fifth  Anniversary 

OF 

HARTFORD  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


BY 

PRESIDENT  WOODROW  WILSON,  LL.D. 


Hartford  Seminary  press 

HARTFORD,  CONN. 

1912 


THE  PRESENT  TASK  OF  THE  MINISTRY. 

By  President  Woodrow  Wilson,  LL.D. 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen : I feel  that  there  is  a touch  of 

temerity  in  an  outsider’s  coming  to  estimate  the  task  of  the 
ministry,  and  yet  I suppose  that  every  profession  is  best  esti- 
mated from  the  outside.  There  is  a degree  of  self-consciousness 
on  the  part  of  those  who  practice  it  which  prevents  their  proper 
estimation  of  their  own  service.  There  is  among  every  consci- 
entious party  of  men,  perhaps,  also,  an  exaggerated  sense  of 
short-coming  and  of  failure,  and  therefore  those  who  stand  out- 
side of  the  profession  see  it  more  in  the  mass,  can  estimate 
more  the  net  results,  overlooking  the  little  discouragements  and 
the  details  which  are  seen  so  clearly  by  those  who  are  inside 
the  daily  life.  I had  thought  that  the  theme  which  has  just 
been  announced  would  be  an  appropriate  theme  for  an  occasion 
like  this,  because  it  is  natural  that  a great  institution,  upon  every 
anniversary  of  its  beginning,  should  make  some  sort  of  esti- 
mate of  what  it  is  that  it  has  done,  not  only,  but  of  what  it 
intends  to  do,  what  its  spirit  is,  and  what  its  purpose  must  con- 
tinue to  be. 

I suppose  that  the  graduating  class  today  must  feel  that  they 
are  in  some  sense  the  mature  fruitage  of  this  institution  and  that 
it  is  particularly  incumbent  upon  them  to  know  what  they  would 
be  about,  to  know  what  they  would  represent,  to  know  what  they 
would  try  to  undertake  and  attempt  in  this  day,  this  interesting 
generation  of  ours. 

I do  not  envy  the  young  minister  who  sets  out  upon  his 
task  in  the  present  age,  because  I know  of  no  more  difficult,  no 


4 


more  delicate,  no  more  tremendous  undertaking  than  his.  It 
is  an  undertaking  to  daunt  any  man  who  depended  upon  his 
own  strength  to  accomplish  it.  Unless  a man  goes,  in  this  age, 
on  this  errand  with  the  conscious  support  of  the  spirit  of  God, 
I do  not  see  how  he  can  have  the  audacity  to  go  out  at  all. 
We  live  in  an  age  when  a particular  thing  cries  out  to  be  done 
which  the  minister  must  do,  and  there  is  no  one  else  who  can 
do  it.  A very  interesting  situation  has  arisen,  intellectually, 
in  our  own  day.  There  was  a time,  not  many  years  ago,  marked 
by  an  entirely  different  intellectual  atmosphere.  There  was  a 
time,  which  we  can  all  remember,  when  men  of  science  were 
content,  were  actually  content,  with  a certain  materialistic  inter- 
pretation of  the  universe.  Their  antagonistic  position  with  re- 
gard to  spiritual  matters  was  not  a defiant  position.  It  was  a 
position  of  self-assurance  and  of  self-content.  They  did  not 
look  into  such  matters,  because  they  were  convinced  that  it  was 
vain  to  look  into  them,  that  there  was  nothing  that  would  come 
of  their  examination  of  the  secret  motives,  of  the  secret  springs 
of  action  among  men,  of  the  secret  source  of  life  in  the  world 
itself.  But  that  time  has  gone  by.  Even  men  of  science  now 
feel  that  the  explanation  which  they  give  of  the  universe  is  so 
partial  an  explanation,  so  incomplete  an  explanation,  that  for 
the  benefit  of  their  own  thought  — quite  aside  from  the  benefit 
of  their  own  souls  — it  is  necessary  that  something  should  be 
added  to  it.  They  know  that  there  is  a spiritual  segment  in  the 
complete  circle  of  knowledge  which  they  cannot  supply  and 
which  must  be  supplied  if  the  whole  circle  is  not  to  show  its 
imperfection  and  incompleteness. 

In  connection  with  the  administration  of  universities  in  our 
day  there  is  an  exceedingly  interesting  situation  in  the  field  of 
science.  It  used  to  be  possible  to  draw  sharp  lines  of  division 
between  the  several  fields  of  science.  But  it  is  no  longer  pos- 
sible to  do  that.  The  science  of  physics  can  no  longer  establish 


5 


a scientific  frontier  as  against  the  science  of  mathematics.  The 
science  of  physics,  on  the  other  side,  cannot  determine  with  defi- 
niteness where  its  jurisdiction  ends  and  the  jurisdiction  of 
chemistry  begins.  Chemistry,  on  its  further  borders,  cannot 
clearly  discriminate  between  its  field  and  the  field  of  organic 
biology.  Biology  knows  that  it  shades  off  into  that  great  his- 
torical biology  that  lies  in  the  field  of  paleontology,  recorded  in 
the  buried  records  of  what  the  earth’s  surface  contains.  And 
all  of  these  sciences  are  aware  that,  linked  as  they  thus  are 
together,  they  must  have  some  common  principle  and  explana- 
tion; that  we  cannot  stop  at  any  frontier  because  there  is  no 
frontier;  that  the  domain  of  knowledge,  like  the  globe  itself,  is 
round  and  there  is  no  stopping  place;  that  what  we  have  to  do 
is  to  complete,  at  whatever  cost,  the  map  of  knowledge,  to  press 
onward  into  the  field  where  lie  the  unknown  things  both  of  physi- 
cal knowledge  and  of  spiritual  knowledge. 

In  other  words,  we  are  in  the  presence  of  the  absolute  neces- 
sity of  a spiritual  coordination  of  the  masses  of  knowledge  which 
we  have  piled  up  and  which  we  have  partially  explained,  and 
the  whole  world  waits  for  that  vast  task  of  intellectual  media- 
tion to  be  performed.  Who  shall  mediate  between  our  spirits 
and  our  knowledge?  Who  shall  show  our  souls  the  tracks  of 
life?  Who  shall  be  our  guides,  to  tell  us  how  we  shall  thread 
this  intricate  plan  of  the  universe  and  connect  ourselves  with 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  made? 

I do  not  know  who  is  to  tell  us  if  not  the  minister.  I do  not 
know  in  whom  these  various  bits  of  knowledge  should  center 
and  bear  fruit  if  not  in  him.  The  world  offers  this  leadership, 
this  intellectual  mediation,  to  the  minister  of  the  gospel.  It  is 
his  if  he  be  man  enough  to  attempt  it ; man  enough  in  his  knowl- 
edge, man  enough  in  the  audacity  and  confidence  of  his  spirit,  man 
enough  in  the  connections  he  has  made  with  the  eternal  and 
everlasting  forces  which  he  knows  to  reside  in  the  human  spirit. 


6 


I believe  that  we  have  erroneously  conceived  the  field  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  our  age.  If  my  observation  does  not  mis- 
lead me,  the  Christian  Church  nowadays  is  tempted  to  think 
of  itself  as  chiefly  a philanthropic  institution,  chiefly  an  institu- 
tion which  shall  supply  the  spiritual  impulse  which  is  necessary 
for  carrying  on  those  great  enterprises  which  relieve  the  dis- 
tress, distress  of  body  and  distress  of  mind,  which  so  disturbs 
the  world  and  so  excites  our  pity,  among  those  men  particularly 
who  have  not  had  the  advantages  of  fortune  or  of  economic 
opportunity.  And  yet  I believe  that  this  is  only  a very  small 
part  of  the  business  of  the  Church.  The  business  of  the  Church 
is  not  to  pity  men.  The  business  of  the  Church  is  not  to  rescue 
them  from  their  suffering  by  the  mere  means  of  material  relief, 
or  even  by  the  means  of  spiritual  reassurance.  The  Church  can- 
not afford  to  pity  men,  because  it  knows  that  men,  if  they  would 
but  take  it,  have  the  richest  and  completest  inheritance  that  it 
is  possible  to  conceive,  and  that,  rather  than  being  deserving  of 
pity,  they  are  to  be  challenged  to  assert  in  themselves  those 
things  which  will  make  them  independent  of  pity.  No  man  who 
has  recovered  the  integrity  of  his  soul  is  any  longer  the  object 
of  pity,  and  it  is  to  enable  him  to  recover  that  lost  integrity  that 
the  Christian  Church  is  organized.  To  my  thinking,  the  Chris- 
tian Church  stands  at  the  center  not  only  of  philanthropy  but 
at  the  center  of  education,  at  the  center  of  science,  at  the  center 
of  philosophy,  at  the  center  of  politics;  in  short,  at  the  center 
of  sentient  and  thinking  life.  And  the  business  of  the  Christian 
Church,  of  the  Christian  minister,  is  to  show  the  spiritual  rela- 
tions of  men  to  the  great  world  processes,  whether  they  be  physical 
or  spiritual.  It  is  nothing  less  than  to  show  the  plan  of  life 
and  men’s  relation  to  the  plan  of  life. 

I wonder  if  any  of  you  fully  realize  how  hungry  men’s  minds 
are  for  a complete  and  satisfactory  explanation  of  life?  I heard 
a very  pathetic  story  told  the  other  day  about  a poor  woman, 


7 


a simple,  uneducated  woman,  in  one  of  our  cities,  who  had,  by 
some  accident,  got  hold  of  one  of  Darwin’s  books  — I don’t 
know  whether  it  was  the  Origin  of  Species  or  not  — and  who 
had  found,  even  to  her  unlettered  mind,  a great  revelation  in 
the  book,  a revelation  of  the  processes  of  physical  life  and  of 
the  plan  of  physical  existence.  She  told  a friend  that  it  had 
taken  out  of  her  — in  her  expression  — " all  the  kick  there  was 
in  her.”  She  said : “ I don’t  find  anything  in  the  preaching 

that  I hear.  It  listens  good,  but  it  is  so  soft.  It  doesn’t  seem  to 
give  me  anything  to  chaw  on.  It  doesn’t  enable  me  to  under- 
stand what  happens  to  me  every  day  any  better  than  I under- 
stood it  before.  It  doesn’t  even  put  bread  in  my  mouth  or  in 
my  children’s  mouths.  But  I read  that  book  and  I saw  that 
there  was  something  doing.  I saw  that  there  was  something 
going  on  of  which  I was  a little  part,  and  it  has  taken  all  the 
kick  out  of  me.” 

I believe  that  her  experience  is  typical  of  the  modern  in- 
tellectual situation.  We  are  infinitely  restless  because  we  are 
not  aware  of  the  plan.  Just  as  soon  as  we  are  aware  of  the 
plan  and  see  that  there  is  “ something  doing,”  something  definite, 
something  to  which  we  are  related,  even  if  by  mere  inexorable 
necessity,  we  at  least  know  that  it  is  futile  to  “ kick,”  that  it  is 
inevitable  that  the  processes  of  the  gods  should  be  ground  out, 
and  that,  therefore,  the  whole  operation  of  life  is  something  to 
which  we  may  properly  relate  ourselves  if  we  choose,  but  must 
relate  ourselves  in  some  fashion  whether  we  will  or  not.  How 
arid,  how  naked,  how  unsatisfying  a thing,  merely  to  know 
that  it  is  an  inexorable  process  to  which  we  must  submit ! 
How  necessary  for  our  salvation  that  our  dislocated  souls  should 
be  relocated  in  the  plan ! And  who  shall  relocate  them,  who 
shall  save  us  by  enabling  us  to  find  ourselves,  if  not  the  minister 
of  the  gospel? 


8 


Shall  he  stand  up  in  his  place  of  teaching  and  talk  as  if 
there  were  antagonism  between  science  and  religion?  If  he 
does,  he  is  taking  religion  out  of  the  modern  mind,  for  religion 
cannot  remain  there  if  it  is  antagonistic  with  science.  Religion 
is  the  explanation  of  science  and  of  life,  that  lost  segment  of 
the  circle  of  which  I was  speaking  just  now.  Think  of  the 
knowledge,  therefore,  with  which  the  minister  must  equip  him- 
self ! Not  at  the  outset,  for  that  is  impossible,  but  as  he  grows 
in  power  and  in  his  own  understanding  of  the  plan  of  the  world. 
Think  what  it  is  that  he  must  do  for  men ! 

In  the  first  place,  it  seems  to  me  that  he  must  interpret  the 
plan,  not  only  in  terms  which  will  satisfy  men  of  science  and  the 
deeper  students  of  theology,  but  also  in  terms  and  from  a point 
of  view  that  will  aid  the  man  in  the  street  who  can  see  only 
a little  part  of  the  plan.  The  minister  must  seek  out  for  him 
such  part  of  the  plan  as  can  be  made  visible  to  his  obstructed 
eye,  and  lead  him  on  from  this  little  door  where  he  enters  the 
plan  to  that  larger  comprehension  to  which  every  door  which 
enters  the  plan  at  all  must  ultimately  lead.  He  must  show  men 
that  there  is  a plan  and  he  must  show  that  plan  to  them  ultimately 
in  its  completeness. 

In  that  way  he  must  discover  for  men  their  spirits.  I some- 
times think  that  men  in  our  age  are  either  losing  their  spirits  or 
thinking  that  they  have  lost  them.  It  is  a very  confusing  age  for 
a man  of  conscience.  In  the  modern  organization  of  economic 
society,  for  example,  no  man  is  a complete  whole,  every  man 
is  a fraction.  No  man  is  an  integer.  His  conscience  has  to 
reckon  out  for  itself  what  part  the  fraction  plays  in  the  whole 
and  what  possibility  of  independent  action  there  is  for  the 
fraction.  The  undetachable  fraction  lies  imbedded  in  the  mass 
and  cannot  be  entirely  discriminated  from  it,  and  men  have 
allowed  their  consciences  to  run  down  because  the  mechanism  in 
them  seemed  to  be  affected  by  great  magnets  outside,  which 


9 


made  it  impossible  for  them  to  work  independently.  All  their 
little  individual  compasses  were  disturbed  by  great  masses  — 
chiefly  of  gold,  — in  their  neighborhood,  and  they  have  asked 
themselves  how  they  could  disengage  their  consciences  and  be- 
come independent  instrumentalities  in  the  sight  of  God.  The 
task  is  so  tremendous  and  so  perplexing  that  many  men  have  ad- 
journed the  effort  and  have  decided  that  all  they  can  do  is  to 
drift  with  the  general  movement  of  the  mass.  They  are  crav- 
ing to  have  someone  rediscover  their  spirits  for  them. 

Not  many  men  in  my  hearing  profess  scruples  in  respect  of 
their  business  and  occupation;  not  many  men  indulge  their 
consciences,  and  they  are  a little  ashamed  of  evidences  of  in- 
dulging their  consciences.  Ask  the  majority  of  men  why  they 
go  to  church  and,  if  you  get  the  same  answer  that  I get,  you 
will  get  an  answer  something  like  this : that  it  is  decent  to  go 
to  church ; that  it  is  expected  of  them  to  go  to  church ; more- 
over that  they  have  lived  in  that  community,  men  and  boys, 
a great  many  years,  and  their  fathers  and  mothers  went  to  the 
same  churches  before  them;  they  like  to  maintain  the  moral 
traditions  and  the  vague  spiritual  connections  which  go  with  the 
habit  of  attending  church.  Don't  believe  a word  of  it.  It  is 
a pure  sham.  Every  man  who  is  not  absolutely  dried  up  is  kept 
alive  by  an  inexhaustible  well  of  sentiment.  It  is  the  fashion 
of  our  age  to  cover  the  well  over  with  concrete  so  that  you 
cannot  even  see  or  guess  the  gleam  of  the  waters,  but  they  are 
there,  creeping  up  in  the  soil  and  maintaining  all  that  produces 
living  fruit. 

What  the  minister  has  to  do  is  to  blast  away  these  concrete 
covers  and  say  to  men  “ Here  are  the  only  sustaining  waters 
of  life,  here  is  the  rediscover}’  of  your  spirits.”  In  that  wise 
they  must  reveal  God  to  men,  reveal  God  to  them  in  their  own 
spirits,  reveal  God  to  them  in  thought  and  in  action,  reestablish 
the  spiritual  kingdom  among  us,  by  proclaiming  in  season  and 


IO 


out  of  season  that  there  is  no  explanation  for  anything  that  is 
not  first  or  last  a spiritual  explanation,  and  that  man  cannot 
live  by  bread  alone,  cannot  live  by  scientific  thought  alone; 
that  he  is  not  only  starving  but  that  he  knows  that  he  is  starving, 
and  that  digestion  of  this  dry  stuff  that  he  takes  into  his  mouth 
is  not  possible  unless  it  be  conveyed  by  the  living  water  of  the 
spirit. 

I take  that  to  be  a very  great  and  a very  difficult  task  — 
a challenge  to  the  best  things  that  are  in  any  man.  I congratu- 
late you,  young  gentlemen,  that  this  is  your  high  and  difficult 
function  in  life.  I beg  you  not  to  apologize  for  the  Scripture 
to  any  man.  I beg  you  not  to  explain  it  away  in  the  presence 
of  any  audience,  but  to  proclaim  its  sovereignty  among  men, 
the  absolute  necessity  of  the  world  to  know  these  things  if  it 
would  know  itself.  For  it  is  a very  significant  matter,  in  my 
mind,  that  the  gospel  came  into  the  world  to  save  the  world  as 
well  as  to  save  individual  souls.  There  is  one  sense  in  which  I 
have  never  had  very  much  interest  in  the  task  of  saving  in- 
dividual souls  by  merely  advising  them  to  run  to  cover.  It  has 
never  seemed  to  me  that  the  isolation  of  the  human  soul,  its  pres- 
ervation from  contamination  such  as  the  Middle  Ages  attempted, 
or  any  modern  substitute  for  that,  was  graced  with  any  dignity 
at  all.  If  men  cannot  lift  their  fellow-men  in  the  process  of 
saving  themselves,  I do  not  see  that  it  is  very  important  that 
they  should  save  themselves,  because  they  reduce  Christianity  by 
that  means  to  the  essence  of  selfishness,  and  anything  that  is 
touched  with  selfishness  is  very  far  removed  from  the  spirit  of 
Christianity.  Christianity  came  into  the  world  to  save  the  world 
as  well  as  to  save  individual  men,  and  individual  men  can  afford 
in  conscience  to  be  saved  only  as  part  of  the  process  by  which  the 
world  itself  is  regenerated.  Do  not  go  about,  then,  with  the 
idea  that  you  are  picking  out  here  and  there  a lost  thing,  but 
go  about  with  the  consciousness  that  you  are  setting  afoot  a 


process  which  will  lift  the  whole  level  of  the  world  and  of  modern 
life. 

Until  you  believe  that,  there  is  absolutely  no  use  in  your 
going  into  a pulpit,  you  will  have  to  have  musical  entertain- 
ments in  order  to  get  an  audience ; and  then  I hope  you  will  be 
distinctly  aware  that  it  is  the  music  and  not  you  that  brought 
the  people.  But  if  you  have  something  to  say  to  these  people 
that  fills  you  as  with  a living  fire,  it  will  not  be  necessary  to 
have  any  music  or  any  cooking  classes  or  any  bowling  alleys 
or  any  gymnastics  in  order  to  bring  men  to  the  source  of  the 
things  for  which  they  most  long.  If  you  feel  this,  you  can 
preach  in  such  seething  syllables  as  to  make  them  feel  it;  and 
unless  you  preach  in  that  wise  I advise  you  to  go  into  some  more 
honest  occupation.  This  work  in  the  modem  world  is  assigned 
to  you  by  invitation,  and  if  you  decline  the  invitation  then  you 
have  shown  that  there  was  some  mistake  in  the  address  on  the 
envelope.  It  was  not  intended  for  you.  It  was  intended  for  you 
only  if  when  it  meets  your  eye  your  spirit  leaps  to  the  challenge 
and  accepts  it,  as  those  do  who  accept  the  obvious  lesson  of  every 
impulse  that  is  in  them,  the  very  dictate  of  their  conscience. 

And  so,  standing  outside  the  ministry,  longing  to  see  it  come 
to  the  relief  of  those  of  us  who  undertake  the  imperfect  pro- 
cesses of  education,  longing  to  see  the  modern  world  given  the 
privilege  of  witnessing  a day  when  the  human  spirit  shall  come 
unto  its  own  again,  I congratulate  you,  I welcome  you,  and 
above  all,  I would  challenge  you  to  do  this  high  thing  in  such 
wise  as  shall  mark  the  Seventy-fifth  Anniversary  of  this  seminary 
as  nothing  else  could  mark  it  — by  taking  your  part,  at  any  rate, 
in  giving  to  the  world  the  vision  of  God  which  it  was  intended 
to  exhibit. 


